About Link Sharing in Private Discussions

When enabled, Link Sharing allows any user clicking the link to access the discussion with a specified role, without being invited to the discussion. They can be used to control when users are able to access a discussion, making them particularly useful when you want to share a discussion temporarily.

Important Notes Regarding Link Sharing

• When a sharing link is enabled, anyone (including those who are not signed in to Kialo) can access the discussion by following the link. During setup, you can specify the role logged in users following the Discussion Access Link have in the discussion. If users are signed in, they are also able to contribute to the discussion (such as creating claims or comments) in the ways that role allows.
• Link Sharing allows you to control when uninvited users can access the discussion by enabling or disabling the link. So long as users have not also been invited to the discussion, the link is the only means by which their accounts have permission to view the discussion. Therefore, once the link is disabled, so is their access to the discussion. The link can be re-enabled at any time if required.
• If a discussion participant who was already in the discussion clicks a sharing link that is set to a higher role than they currently have (for example, if the participant is currently a Writer and the link role is set to Editor), they are promoted to the higher role while using the link.
• If Link Sharing is enabled while publishing a private discussion, it is disabled as it is no longer required. The disabled link redirects users to the published discussion. Published discussions cannot be made private again.
• If a discussion which has Link Sharing enabled is cloned, sharing links are disabled in the cloned discussion and need to be re-enabled if desired.
• If a sharing link is embedded, any users viewing the embed also view the discussion as if they had clicked the sharing link. This can be used with your website to allow users to view or interact with the private discussion without needing to leave the site. See Embedding a Kialo Discussion for further information on embedding discussions.

How to Enable or Disable Link Sharing

Note: To adjust settings for Discussion Access Links, you must have Admin permissions or higher in a private discussion.

Discussion Access Links are disabled by default.

To enable Link Sharing:

1. Open the Discussion Menu and click ‘Discussion Settings’.
2. Click the ‘Invites & Permissions’ tab.
3. In the ‘Sharing Link’ section, click ‘Enable’ to generate a link.
4. (Optional): If desired, adjust ‘Suggester’ to another role.

To disable Link Sharing:

1. Open the Discussion Menu and click ‘Discussion Settings’.
2. Click the ‘Invites & Permissions’ tab.
3. In the ‘Sharing Link’ section, click ‘Disable’.